Aduial
by erunyauve
Summary: A new baby is a mixed blessing under the Doom.


**Notes:** This story takes place about ten years before the Dagor Bragollach.

**Disclaimer:** Tolkien owns the characters and plots. I'm just playing in his garden.

**Aduial**

_...The Eldar would beget children only in days of happiness and peace if they could._ (1)

"I do not know what I will say to Arothir. It is not like him to act so imprudently."

"Is it not?" Edhellos asked, eyebrows raised. (2)

Angrod winced. Their son and an elf-maid he had known all of a few hours had walked into the woods at the Mereth Aderthad and returned quite bonded to one another. Angrod had spent half the night trying to placate a furious elf-lord and the other half trying to placate a wife with an almost Vanyarin aversion to scandal. Four hundred years later, this remained a subject best avoided in the name of domestic tranquillity.

"His failing is that he can refuse his wife nothing."

Their escort made a choking noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh turned into a cough.

"I am not sure I see that as a failing, melethen."

Ai, Valar! He was sinking fast. "It is a failing his father shares equally, I assure you."

"It would be a failing," Edhellos began, looking at him sideways, "if your wife were not so exceedingly sensible and right in all things."

Angrod threw up his hands. "I cannot redeem myself, can I?"

"No, but I will forgive you," Edhellos decided. "Else, you will only dig yourself a deeper hole."

* * *

Spring brought icy winds to the grassy plain. Two more days' travel would bring them to Tol Sirion, if the Fen of Serech proved not too wet. Angrod moved to block the wind as their escort attempted to start a fire. "You might have stopped me, Fannardh."

"My task is to guard your person, not your tongue, híren. That burden falls to your lady wife."

"And a great burden it is," Edhellos said, joining them. "Please tell me that you will not upset our son with your misgivings. You know he will take it ill."

"I will make no mention of my 'misgivings', as you call them," he promised. "It is a happy occasion." Still, the joy of a new grandchild only heightened his disquiet when he looked across the Ard-galen. As each day passed, the more bleak seemed the future, not only for himself, but for all of the Noldor. If they could not hope to defeat Morgoth, at least they might defang him, and so protect those they loved a little longer. To have caged him thus was akin to capping a volcano, with the eventual eruption greater for having been so long suppressed.

* * *

"Aegnor sends his regrets - we could not both leave Drûn. Spring is a busy time for us." The baby fretted at him. He rocked the child gently in his arms. "What could possibly be so grave for one so little?" he murmured. "You are too bright-eyed to want sleep and I know you have just been fed. What more could you need?" (3)

"Dry swaddling, most likely," Meril said.

"I will take him, Grandfather," Finduilas jumped up.

He surrendered the child to her and she took him out to be changed. Angrod looked at Meril. "We are Grandfather and Grandmother, now," he said with mock gravity.

"Oh, yes, and I am Naneth, though her father is still Adda. She is nearly forty now, you know," Meril smiled. "Or so she is sure to tell you at least once a day. Truly, I should not complain - she is so eager to look after the baby." (4)

The Mithrim did not hire servants to look after their children. Angrod knew of no Noldor save Fëanor who had not had nurses to care for their children. He could imagine what Nerdanel thought of that, with her brood, but perhaps the older ones had looked after the younger children.

"She is growing up lovely," Angrod said. "She will have half the elves in the tower swooning after her in a few years."

Meril laughed. "Yes, I can already see that she will drive her adda to distraction."

"It is well that we never had a daughter. She would have had an escort at her heels every time she left her chamber," Edhellos said.

"Oh, no, I think I would have locked her away until she was 500 or so," Angrod countered, but felt regret for the daughter they would never have. They had hoped for another child in Aman, and had Samírien not ended as it had, the child might have been begotten that night. (5)

"Did you truly have escorts in Aman?"

"Edhellos did."

"That was only for you. My mother thought you were not to be trusted. I do not think she stopped calling you, 'that boy' until we were betrothed."

Angrod could imagine that a number of adjectives had been added to the epithet since he had taken her daughter into exile.

Finduilas returned with the baby and placed him in Edhellos' outstretched arms. Angrod moved to make room and patted the settee. "Come sit with us, child."

Finduilas sat between them but frowned. "I am not a child, Grandfather. I am almost forty, you know."

He hid a smile. "So I hear. You are nearly grown, now." He wanted to tell her to enjoy her childhood as long as she could; that the coming days would make of her an adult soon enough. She was so like her father, and Angrod wanted to wrap both of them in gossamer and steel, that their fair innocence should never see the ugliness of war and death.

Arothir followed close on her heels and sat at his wife's feet. "Ingoldo is to arrive tomorrow."

"And my sister?"

Arothir made a face. "I have no need for her prophecies of gloom."

"You _did_ invite her, Arothir?"

"Of course I did. She sent her regrets - it is a bad time for travel, and so forth."

His son spoke less out of real dislike than petulance at Galadriel's indifference, Angrod thought. Arothir did not let go of hurts easily.

"I thought Lhinel would be here," Edhellos said to Meril. "I was eager to see her again."

"Her daughter is expecting a child of her own, so of course, my sister cannot leave her." Meril had no other family - her father had been slain in the Dagor Aglareb and her mother killed in the first onslaught of Morgoth, just before the Noldor had arrived.

"I am curious to know what name you have made."

Arothir looked at him in mock severity. "You will have to wait like everyone else, Adar."

"There cannot be great mystery," Meril teased. "You Noldor seem determined to give all of your children the same name."

Angrod laughed. "You can imagine the confusion at a family feast in Tirion. Calling for Turko or Káno would bring any combination of Fingolfinions and Fëanorions."

The baby started to fuss again. "You are wanting your mother this time," Edhellos said, handing the baby to Meril.

"Ai, you are a greedy one. Perhaps you will sleep once you are fed?"

"Maybe," Arothir said doubtfully.

* * *

"Ingoldo is still five leagues away," Angrod said, pointing south of the tower.

Arothir leaned against the parapet next to him. "The road is an easy one from his camp. He will arrive early tomorrow."

In the garden below, the ladies had taken the baby out to see the star-opening. Soon, the dulcet tones of Finduilas and her mother rose in greeting to the stars.

"I shall never tire of that. Do you remember the first sunset in Mithrim, how the Sindar sang at twilight?"

"They were so upset about the sun! Fingolfin was quite beside himself when they asked him to send her back to Aman." Arothir glanced at his father. "I know you have been guarding your tongue, Adar."

Unwillingly, he looked toward the north. At the far end of the look-out, two sentries stood motionless, ever watching the far end of the pass. Beyond rose the shadow of Thangorodrim. One might think it dormant, but Angrod had too often seen foul vapours pouring forth.

"Your mother has looked at me ill every time I opened my mouth. It is less that I have guarded my tongue than that I feared to lose it."

"I know your concerns, and truly, I share them, but-"

"Meril wanted another baby."

"Once she has set her mind on something-"

Angrod waved his hand. "Say no more. We are both hopelessly in love with our wives."

"I wanted another child, too, and I did not think we should wait." He glanced at his father. "But you think it is already too late."

"I think it is very late," Angrod said thickly. His heart warned him that he would not see this grandchild come of age. "If you had the children safe at Nargothrond - this is a military outpost, Arothir. There is a reason the elves who serve you have no wives or children in Beleriand."

Arothir hesitated. "Do you remember Ingoldo's words after Thingol sent us away?"

"You mean, after I so tactfully told Thingol about the Kinslaying?" Angrod said with a rueful smile. "I believe he lectured me about the Doom."

"That was not all he said. _ 'The trust of the Noldor shall come from hearts least regarded. I do not give up hope for you and yours.'_

"I am no warrior, Adar. I am not meant to rule. Tol Sirion hardly needs a warden - it is a watch-post, as you say, and the guards obey their captains. I compose poetry I show only to my wife and write excursions on Vanyarin works no one has ever read." Arothir's voice carried no bitterness; indeed, the last thing this painfully shy elf wanted was remark. "But I will leave a legacy. When all that we have made has fallen to the Doom, and we ourselves are slain, I will leave a legacy." (6)

* * *

In Aman, Arothir would have presented the baby to the High King. As travel to Eithel Sirion with a baby was unthinkable, Finrod would stand in Fingolfin's place.

Solemnly, they gathered in the garden, and Arothir brought his son before Finrod.

"What name have you made for the child?"

"Artanáro Rodnor," Arothir answered, giving the Quenya name with its Sindarin version, as custom had arisen among the Exiles.

"And has his mother also made a name?"

"She has. I name him Ereinion," Meril answered. (7)

Noble fire, scion of kings.

"Rodnor Ereinion. You have chosen well."

A feast in the great hall followed the Essecarmë, and the elves of Tol Sirion flocked to see the little one and join in the merrymaking. Ereinion, Angrod saw with some amusement, was blissfully asleep. Night would no doubt find the tired parents walking him up and down the halls and making fervent supplications to Estë.

Finrod clapped an arm around Angrod and took him aside. "You are twice blessed, brother. They are beautiful children."

"My blessings are unnumbered," he murmured. Fortune had smiled upon him as it had not upon his brothers. One loved a mortal woman he would not see again, for the pain of their sundered fates; the other an elf-maid equally sundered by a sea he could not cross. He did not wish to linger on what had slipped from Finrod's grasp.

"You are too anxious, Ango. Days of joy should not pass in sorrow."

"I do not mean to seem ungrateful, Ingoldo. And yet, if the leaguer fails-"

"You have so much more to lose."

Angrod sighed. "I would not have said that."

"No, but I thought it cruel to let you flounder," Finrod smiled. He sobered. "The doom that lies upon this little one is not our doom, brother. From the stars that arise in our twilight shall come the hope of our people."

His brother's words did not entirely comfort him. He spoke of _estel_, of hope without reason, but the long years of preparing for defeat had taught him to hope for nothing for himself. He wanted _amdir_ - a reason to hope for his loved ones.

He looked at Arothir, who nuzzled his cheek against his sleeping son's downy head. Their contentment stirred love so strong Angrod thought his heart might break.

* * *

(1)_ The Eldar would beget children..._

(_Morgoth's Ring_, 'Laws and Customs Among the Eldar' p 213 pub Houghton Mifflin)

(2) Edhellos

Although it is not explicitly stated that Eldalótë went into exile, she is one of the few wives named and the only one whose name was translated into Sindarin. Moreover, Tolkien states: _The names of Sindarin form by which they were usually called in later song and legend were Finrod, Angrod (with wife Eðellos and son Arothir), Aegnor and Galadriel._ If she did not go into exile, it is very strange that she would be remembered in Sindarin songs and legends. (_The Peoples of Middle-earth_, 'The Shibboleth of Fëanor' p 346 pub Houghton Mifflin)

(3) Drûn

This label appears in between Angrod and Aegnor's names on the map in _The War of the Jewels_. In _The Lays of Beleriand_, a line refers to _ambush in Ladros, fire in Drûn_, so it seems as likely as any name for the fortress or area the brothers occupied in Dorthonion. (_The War of the Jewels_, 'The Later Quenta Silmarillion' p 183 pub Houghton Mifflin; _The Lays of Beleriand_, 'The Lay of Leithian Recommenced' p 408 pub Ballantine/Del Rey)

(4) Adda

Ilkorin (Northern Sindarin) word for 'Daddy' (_The Lost Road_, 'Etymologies' p 387 pub Ballantine/Del Rey)

(5) Samírien

I can only find a name for the festival Morgoth so rudely interrupted in _Lost Tales_. It probably would not be valid in mature Quenya. (_The Book of Lost Tales I_, 'The Theft of Melko' p 159 pub Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Kindle Edition)

(6) _'The trust of the Noldor shall come from hearts least regarded. I do not give up hope for you and yours.'_

This comes from a previous story about Angrod's visit to Doriath.

(7) Ereinion

As usual, the Tolkien Gateway has this horribly wrong. The name 'Ereinion' comes from the body of the text of 'The Shibboleth of Fëanor', written in 1968. His epessë was Gil-galad ('star of radiance'), in this text said to be given because his shield_ shone from afar like a star in sunlight or moonlight_. (_The Peoples of Middle-earth_, 'The Shibboleth of Fëanor' pp 347-348 pub Houghton Mifflin) Obviously, this was an epessë given later in life, not his mother-name. Ereinion is here given as his name prior to adopting the epessë. Nothing is said as to whether it is his father-name or mother-name, but an earlier text (see below) gives his father-name as Artanáro. However, Tolkien went through several names, including Finellach (dating from approximately 1965), so that is not definitive. (_Unfinished Tales_, 'Introduction' p 9 pub Houghton Mifflin Kindle Edition)

The beginnings of the decision to make him the son of Arothir appear in Christopher Tolkien's editorial notes to 'The Shibboleth'. Here, he quotes a passage written by his father in 1965 in which Gil-galad is said to be his mother-name. (_The Peoples of Middle-earth_, 'The Shibboleth of Fëanor' p 350 pub Houghton Mifflin) However, at this stage, the name was given for a different reason: the brightness of his eyes, which in turn dates from an earlier writing in which he was the son of Finrod. (_The War of the Jewels_, 'The Later Quenta Silmarillion' p 242 pub Houghton Mifflin) It is also here that his mother is named 'Meril' (though she is Finrod's wife at this stage).


End file.
